Amazing Medicine Practiced Here

Michelle Callari

Attorney Michelle Callari was at work in a Newark courtroom when she realized her baby was about to arrive. She was five weeks early and far from her Bergen County doctor and hospital. At University Hospital she and her premature baby boy got the expert care they needed. Now 2-years-old, her son, Reid, is a happy, healthy toddler.

Konnor Episcopo was 12 when he severed his hand on a power saw, while helping his father in the family construction business. A renowned microsurgeon at University Hospital was able to reattach Konnor’s hand. The road to full recovery was long and arduous, but today the 22-year-old says every day he "lives his dream."

It was New Year’s Eve when Jacky Homes knew something was terribly wrong; he could barely breathe. Cardiologists at University Hospital explained that his heart was only pumping at 20 percent capacity, and he was in heart failure. Thanks to an outpatient program at the hospital, Jacky now lives a healthier lifestyle that includes a daily walk. He has become a pacesetter for good health.

Sarah Haznat was three when she was hit by a truck and air lifted to University Hospital’s Trauma Center. She was near death when she arrived, but with the relentless efforts of the trauma physicians, Sarah pulled through. Now a 21-year-old college student, she hopes to become a doctor. Her brother Abdul was a patient at the Trauma Center recently, after a serious car accident. More than two decades after his sister’s experience, the medicine practiced at University Hospital is as amazing as ever.

Elaina Holden has no recollection of what happened after she fell and hit her head on cement steps, until she woke up at University Hospital. She suffered an epidural hematoma, a life-threatening buildup of blood on the brain, that was removed during emergency surgery. Her life and her brain were both saved with no residual effects, and Elaina says every day she’s "high on life."

Mati Muñoz arrived at University Hospital with only two months to live unless she had a liver transplant. A donor liver arrived in time to save her life, but her fight for life wasn’t over. Physicians in the Liver transplant Center went to battle with her insurance company to get her the life-saving medication she needed. Today she is a volunteer mentor to other liver transplant patients.

Wayne Nash couldn’t have imagined that one of the defibrillators he suggested be installed at his workplace would one day save his life. When he went into sudden cardiac death at his Newark office, his colleagues revived him, and he was rushed to University Hospital. Cardiologists used an innovative new hypothermic procedure that gave his body and his heart a chance to recover. Wayne is extremely grateful for a second chance at life.

Charisse Smullen had what several doctors told her was an inoperable tumor in her pelvis and said she would probably not walk again. Unwilling to settle for that prognosis, she went to University Hospital, where orthopaedic surgeons successfully removed the tumor and got her back on her feet. The mother of a young son, Charisse says she plans to stow the cane she is using very soon.

Robert Ungar conducted his own nationwide search for an ophthalmologist who could remove the tumor on his optic nerve and save his sight. It turned out he found one right in his own back yard at University Hospital. A team of ophthalmologists and neurosurgeons, who were able to "think outside the box," as Bob says, used a two-step procedure that accomplished what no other physicians in the country thought they could.

These are just a few examples of patients who have come to University Hospital and received extraordinary treatments and had positive outcomes. Highly skilled, renowned physicians use cutting-edge procedures and technology to accomplish the seemingly impossible almost every day.